Honestly, I don’t feel right just reviewing music like normal without trying to talk about the injustices in this country. Even writing this, I don’t feel like I’m the person that should be trying to say something, but I need an escape to put my thoughts and feelings about this somewhere instead of keeping them stuck inside. So every couple weeks; I will look at a song, album, artist, etc that relates to the Black Lives Matters protest and analyze why it’s important and how it relates to the injustices.
So today’s entry is a song called Pig Feet by Terrace Martin that features Denzel Curry, Kamasi Washington, Daylyt, and G Perico. It’s a pretty traditional protest style song, even though Terrace calls it an “all action song”, with it’s wild and fast paced instrumental. Kamasi’s wailing saxophone especially helps paint the vibe of pure chaos that the song gets across. It brings across a feeling of a modern day, jazz inspired, Rage Against the Machine. But as great as the song itself is, it’s not much without the video.
The video is made up of videos from the current protests. Everything from the infamous video of a NYC police car bumping protesters, to the CNN anchor getting arrested on live television are in the music video. But the most important part comes at the end, when names of black people who have been killed by the police roll on the screen. That part of the video goes on for over two and a half minutes with no sound, and it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve seen from these protests. It feels like the names will never stop coming, and you’re trying to read as many names as you can but the realization slowly comes over you that it’s hard to really calculate how many people have been affected by this. Each of those people had friends, family, coworkers, hobbies, significant others, and so much more. And they’re going by at over five people a second. It’s a really hard thing to sit through, as it’s extremely depressing and sad to think about, but it’s something we need to think about so the movement doesn’t fade into the background.
Terrace did an interview about the song, and said that he wants to get across three different messages; awareness, strength, and fearlessness. He mentions how the song was originally intended for his upcoming studio album, Drones, but decided to release it now after talking with the artists featured on it, all of which are from different genres and sounds. Terrace is a master at bringing together different people and adapting to bring their specific sound to whatever they’re working on. He’s been on everything from the jazz rap masterpiece that is To Pimp a Butterfly, the 2010s west coast g-funk classic that is YG’s Still Brazy, he was also on Travis Scott’s boundary pushing trap album Rodeo, playing saxophone on a couple Florence + The Machine songs on their newest album, touring and working tirelessly with the jazz icon Herbie Hancock on his upcoming album, and many more. Even the day before this is posted, he was featured on a new song by Leon Bridges. Most producers and artists can’t say they’ve been a part of one certified classic album, but Terrace has been a part of many.
Even looking at my earlier posts from this year, I’ve mentioned Terrace’s projects in three different posts already, because he’s been putting out projects consistently this year. He even mentions how Herbie would always say, “Miles [Davis] always thought the job of an artist was to be a mirror for society,” and I think that’s what we’re going to continue to see over the rest of this year. I think a lot of artists are going to use this as a time to be extremely honest with their political beliefs and social issues, even if they haven’t been before, and maybe even use it as a time to learn about the injustices happening. One of my favorite childhood artists, Lindsey Stirling, is one of these artists. After not being political or talked about social issues before, she has now started to promote the Black Lives Matter movement. She talked about how before she thought Colin Kaepernick was disrespectful by kneeling for the flag and she would be the person that would respond, “Well, all lives matter” when people mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement. But a couple days ago, she posted a video where she’s talking through tears about how she feels terrible for only learning of the problem now. Maybe this will inspire her to get political in her music about these protests, and I’m sure many artists are feeling the same thing right now.
Artists have even already started to put out music directly related to these protests. Terrace is one, but YG and Meek Mill have also released songs related to the battle between the police and the protests. Run The Jewels released their fourth studio album a few days ago, which contains lots of political and racial commentary, including a verse by Killer Mike written in 2019 where he details a situation with police that was inspired by what happened to Eric Garner, but is eerily similar to what happened to George Floyd. I expect there to be a lot more in the next couple months, and at the rate Terrace is making his projects this year, maybe even an EP full of songs inspired from these protests sooner rather than later.
As for why this is important, it brings all these important artists together from all different genres. Even aside from Terrace and the many classic albums he’s been a part of, Kamasi Washington has been considered the future of jazz music from many critics and has been friends with Terrace since they were kids. Denzel Curry has become one of the most consistent and acclaimed rappers in the last few years with his aggressive and unique style of hip hop. G Perico is a west coast gangsta rapper that’s started to get some mainstream attention in the last couple years, and Daylyt is a well known battle rapper who’s also from California. These are all people that would almost never have worked together, but Terrace brings them all together to make a powerful track that expresses the distrust of the police system they’ve gained from growing up where they have. Terrace talks about this in his interview saying, “It’s the same shit. Everybody was a product of the crack era. Everybody understood gang banging to a certain level. Everybody understood the police, and everybody was just trying to identify their enemies.” It’s a life that probably everyone reading this has never experienced, but songs like this give us an insight into what it’s like for people that do, which is why it’s an important song to listen to and understand.
留言